Favorite recent post by the previous poster

[Utah Neolib]

Tennessee's another dark horse for being a COVID-19 epicenter over the coming weeks, competing with Georgia despite only having 65% of its population

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Be aware that for Tennessee to be at Florida levels during its Delta Wave peak, it'd only need 7K cases a day. Tennessee is looking to surpass that, though.

South Carolina's also hot on their tail in terms of cases, but its positivity rate's somewhat lower.


In the case of Ohio, it looks like Autumn's about to arrive and is just around the corner.
Mike DeWine won't be happy about this one.

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Could be a harbinger of bad days to come for the Midwest over the coming months.
Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin all are seeing slow but steady increases, both in terms of positivity and in confirmed cases. The Midwestern wave is coming and it'll be brutal, possibly even worse than the Southern one.

This isn't even to speak of the Interior Northwest, where Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas are looking to break all records per capita despite it not even being close to winter yet. They should be getting ready, though.

[Utah Neolib]

Yes. If for no other reason than because showing mercy to someone who might not deserve it, but for whom continued punishment will have no positive effect on anyone, is one of the best ways I can think of to honor RFK's legacy and make gentle the life of this world.

We can do this in many ways.  

We can, and should, abolish the Death Penalty in all states.  We can, and should, revisit those aspects of the criminal justice system that result in racial and ethnic inequalities (e. g. sentencing enhancements, minimum-mandatories, things like greater penalties for crack vs. powder).  We can restore voting rights to all citizens no longer in prison or jail.  (I don't believe in active jail or prison inmates voting, those rights have been taken away by due process.)  We can examine the lasting damage a felony criminal record has and make provisions for these records (in at least some cases) to expire, balancing the need for law enforcement intelligence over the societal interest to not have large numbers of persons precluded from the benefits of a law-abiding lifestyle because of a past mistake).  We can reinstitute parole in states where it no longer exists for a wide range of offenses.  We can end oppressive economic penalties for minor crimes and traffic offenses which disproportionately impact low-income persons.  (This was the REAL grievance of the people of Ferguson, MO, one that got very little play in the national media.)    We can do all that and then some.  

And well we should.  But political assassinations are different.  It is not merciful to encourage people to take a shot at political leaders.  "Where there's life, there's hope."  For some who would kill our leaders, there's the hope that some terrorist somewhere might make their release from prison a demand to be met in order to prevent a terrorist attack.  That's different than the crack addict who panics aduring a convenience store clerk in a robbery, or a fugitive who holds court in the street with police for fear of being captured.  Those people can be deterred by the penalties and are somewhat capable of counting the costs and choosing the cheaper alternative.  Political assassins have already done that and are convinced that they will not be caught, or who are willing martyrs.  It is not merciful to society to parole them.

[Utah Neolib]

Nixon.

What is it with you and Richard Nixon?

Better question, what's with everyone else here and JFK?

For starters, Nixon didn't send us to the moon

[Utah Neolib]

Ginsburg's biggest mistake wasn't this, but not resigning from the court while Obama was President. I think she honestly bought into the hype that people created around her and wanted to leave the court on her own terms rather than what was good for the country.

You can argue in hindsight that it was a mistake, but how many people thought that Donald Trump would ever become president?

She should have retired in 2013. It was very obvious Democrats were going to lose the senate in 2014, and it was likely that whoever the D nominee was in 2016 was going to lose simply because a party rarely wins 3 terms in the white house in a row. Her decision to not retire when Obama would get to pick the replacement of his choice was always much more likely to backfire than it was to not.